Valkyrie Profile -- Hard mode, because there is no other mode (I wouldn't mind checking out some of the Easy/Normal exclusives though). I'm playing way dumber, making a bunch of shit. Lezard's Tower is truly awful, so I'm trying to prep for that and those goddamn eye and snake monsters. :(

Tales of the Abyss -- Playing this just in between readings for Summer School. It's new game +, so I'm just enjoying the story really. It's good for that since story events are pretty well written and ...quite long.

Oh man, I remember that one time where I got one of those from the first available Cave of Oblivion.That's like... yeah, I could try... or I could get up and go hit reset.

Cave of Oblivion "snake-eyes" can be taken care of with a Tome of Alchemy to get maaad experience. IIRC, the ones in Lezard's Tower are one of few enemies that it has no effect on (a lot of the super enemies aren't...boo hiss).

Finished chapter 11, and I've hit the timeskip (i.e. Chrom's made his choice on eugenics). Given my playstyle, he ended up with a random village girl (which is just as planned). Lucina will probably end up alright since all of her inheritance will be coming from my level 8 Great Lord Chrom who's gobbled every stat booster available. Despite this though, I'm not doing anything with her because of the novelty run (which is why I'm running with the Village Girl to begin with). It also means that simply pairing up with a person doesn't actually do anything towards building supports and you don't need to either marry or kill off any of Chrom's eligible bachelorettes.

And speaking of, casualties thus far include: Drakenroy due to an unlucky crit and Nanna due to asshat reinforcements both during chapter 7, and Dierdre due to bad placement and Matthew due to a combination of overestimating his ability to dodge/bad luck and bad placement (although it was for a chest) on chapter 11 (and he was just one level away from promotion).

My current party includes: Chrom who is shitwrecker incarnate right now, Est is less of a tank but is still beastly as all fuck, Florina has been promoted to Dark Flier for Galeforce shenanigans (and she's getting better damage from magic than from lances), Nyna is still more or less team healer, Leonardo is doing a hell of a lot better than his FE10 incarnation now that Discipline has caught him up in bow ranks though he's still behind in levels, Amelia is still kicking around but she's fallen way behind, Marth is still kinda iffy as he continues his career as an axe magnet (also Lodestars don't seem to gain any skills, so it might be worth reclassing him).

As for the unfortunate grinding I've had to partake in. I've made....-One run through Champions of Yore 1.-One run through Champions of Yore 2.-Three runs through Golden Gaffe.-One run through Exponential Experience.-One skirmish battle.

Ys IV - Up to the second boss. Got the best armor currently available and my level should be right. Just a matter of getting his pattern down.

Also played some Chrono Trigger hard mode mod briefly, before discovering that every single fight is essentially a boss fight now, which is immensely tedious and not really balanced or interesting. Blerf. Hoping the chrono cross mod I found isn't as insane.

Aquaria - Beat two of the eyeball jellyfish in the meat temple. Also found some recipes that can use all the spoiled meat I keep finding in jars.

I was very much planning on playing Day of the Tentacle and Cupla Innata recently, but this weather is confusing which games I want to play.

Logged

o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`

Muddling through some obscure quests in Dark Arisen. The map is next to useless for a lot of quests in this game. I'm constantly hitting up walkthroughs and its pissing me off.:(Also got OkamiHD off the PSN. It really does look fantastic.

Also played some Chrono Trigger hard mode mod briefly, before discovering that every single fight is essentially a boss fight now, which is immensely tedious and not really balanced or interesting. Blerf. Hoping the chrono cross mod I found isn't as insane.

Ni no Kuni: In another edition of "I Can't Catch This Familiar For Anything" it's the Lagoon Naiad. I keep going back to the Crusoe Islands between story bits, but it seems no matter how many I kill it just will not be tamed. I already have one, but my OCD has kicked in with this game and I want to catch two of every base familiar and level them all up to their final evolutions manually.

Also played some Chrono Trigger hard mode mod briefly, before discovering that every single fight is essentially a boss fight now, which is immensely tedious and not really balanced or interesting. Blerf. Hoping the chrono cross mod I found isn't as insane.

More HP is generally tedious. My favorite kind of balancing is more the 'glass cannon' approach, where enemies don't LAST that long, but they can kill you really fast. This is kind of what SMT does. Most battles in nocturne are over in like three turns, tops, but they all have the potential to wreck your day.

Meanwhile, the Level 0 mod for CT took EXACTLY the approach and it plays really well. OH WELP.

Wrt VP, I remember the first time I played it it was on easy, and I hated it, because I didn't realize this at the time, but you don't actually have to play the game even remotely right to win on easy mode. So I wasn't even bothering with combos, which are like the CENTRAL THANG of the battle system.

Logged

o/` I do not feel joy o/`o/` I do not dream o/`o/` I only stare at the door and smoke o/`